The rapid growth in Vietnam’s retail market in the recent past has made the country an attractive destination for multinational retailers. Vietnam has continued its dominance in the top 10 emerging retail markets across the globe, as per Global Retail Development Index. However, Vietnam has moved down five places to sixth position in 2009 index from the topmost slot in 2008, but despite this Vietnam remains attractive destination for retail investment due to its strong GDP growth, changes in the country’s regulatory structure favoring foreign investors, and increasing consumer demand for modern retail concepts, says “Vietnam Retail Analysis (2008-2012)”, a research report from RNCOS.

The retail sector market in Vietnam is much smaller as compared to other developing economies in Asia, but it has shown strong fundamentals and buoyant expansion in comparison of its neighbors like India and China. The value of retail sales in Vietnam has expanded rapidly over the past few years. It reached nearly US$ 39 Billion in 2008 from around US$ 23.7 Billion in 2005 on account of rising consumer expenditure and changing market dynamics.

We expect that despite the 2008 financial turmoil, the retail industry turnover in Vietnam will continue growing. Government support and favorable consumer confidence will result in positive outlook for retailers in Vietnam. Traditional retail channels will continue to dominate the market, but government decision to allow 100% entry to foreign retailers under WTO commitment will lead modern retail to realize unrealistic growth.

With such strong fundamentals, we anticipate the retail industry to surpass US$ 85 Billion in revenues by 2012. Modern retail channels are expected to play crucial role in the future growth of the industry, improving their position in the market. We also expect a short wave of consolidation in the next four years as foreign retailers will try to consolidate their position and deepen their market penetration.

Our research report will help consultants, industry analysts and vendors to get in-depth knowledge on the current, past and future performance of the Vietnam retail industry. The future outlook mentioned in report has been derived by interacting with various industry veterans, developers, analyzing information from research papers, journals and our industry-specific in-house developed models.